Re: the 41 sounds

Fascinating. and your method looks very sound to me Jim.
robert
--- Jim Anderson <jima@...> wrote:
> Dear group,
>
> The first sutta of the Saddaniiti states:
>
> 1. appabhutekataaliisa saddaa va.n.naa.
>
> 1. The forty-one sounds beginning with 'a' are (called)
> va.n.na-s.
>
> The vutti comments:
>
> The forty-one sounds beginning with 'a' in the word
> (paavacana) of the
> Blessed One are called va.n.na-s as follows:
>
> a aa i ii u uu e o ka kha ga gha "na ca cha ja jha ~na .ta
> .tha .da
> .dha .na ta tha da dha na pa pha ba bha ma ya ra la va sa ha
> .la a.m
>
> 2. akkharaa ca te.
>
> 2. These (sounds) are also (called) akkhara-s.
>
> =========================
>
> There's still more to come. Here are some thoughts that came
> up while
> I was pondering over the first sutta. At first I was going to
> call the
> set of 41 sounds 'the alphabet' as that is what Warder,
> Narada, &
> Buddhadatta calls it in the introductory pages of their
> primers (but
> note that the consonants are listed without the accompanying
> 'a' as
> above). I wondered about this word 'alphabet' and felt that it
> had
> more to do with the graphic symbols used to represent the
> sounds
> rather than simply presenting a set of sounds (phonemes) used
> for a
> particular language. If one considers the English alphabet,
> many of
> the individual letters can have several pronunciations such as
> the
> simple vowels, 'c' (= s, k, sh), and so on. Although the
> English
> alphabet has only 26 letters the set of phonemes used in the
> language
> is far greater. One table shows English as having 24
> consonantal and
> 25 vowel sounds.
>
> The most important Pali grammars that follow the old Indian
> system
> are:
>
> 1. Kaccaayanavyaakara.na by Kaccaayana
> 2. Saddaniiti by Aggava.msa (12th cent. Burma)
> 3. Moggallaanavyaakara.na by Moggallaana
>
> I'm not sure of the dating of the 1st and 3rd but I know that
> the
> first is the oldest. There are also many other grammatical
> texts based
> on these three. AFAIK, nothing has been translated into
> English -- so
> if you want to study them you have to read them in Pali. They
> are
> available on-line for downloading. The one I have studied the
> most is
> the Saddaniiti which is the largest one with 928pp. in 3 vols.
> for the
> edition I use. The last volume (not online) is called the
> Suttamaala
> (garland of aphorisms). There are 1347 suttas, usually short,
> like the
> ones given at the top of this message and most of them are
> followed by
> explanations. The first 23 suttas deal with the sound system
> of Pali
> and I would like to present these to you. Warder's section on
> the
> alphabet is based on them but he does deviate on a number of
> points.
> What I have given so far is just the set of 41 sounds. The
> classification of the sounds comes next. Kaccaayana and
> Aggava.msa
> agree on the exact set of 41. Moggallaana adds two more vowels
> (a
> short e & o) to make it 43. To me the set of 41 sounds is a
> reduction
> of the language down to its simplest elements, the building
> blocks and
> in a way like the reduction of dhammas down to a small number
> of
> paramattha dhammas.
>
> Feel free to ask questions or make comments on anything
> relating to
> Pali. If you see anything in the primers or grammars, a Pali
> word
> or phrase or something you'd like to bring up for some
> feedback -- go
> ahead.
>
> Best wishes,
> Jim
>
>


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